Tag: gender politics

Despite the name of this tag “gender politics” these posts do not have to be about gender per se, they just have to have some mention of gender, or the role of women/men in it that made me go hhhhmmmm.

Rec’d back in Feb by Aarti on Twitter. Testosterone Rex brings together evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience and social history to move beyond old ‘nature versus nurture’ debates, and to explain why it’s time to unmake the tyrannical myth of Testosterone Rex. (Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds on Goodreads) I read Fine’s […]

Bel Dame Apocrypha #1 Originally read August 2011 – Reread August 2014 Okay, this book seriously rewards a reread. I can’t believe it has only been 3 years since I read it because I remembered so little of the plot. The opening I had no problem with recalling, but everything after that was a bit […]

Okay, first off the cover to this is awful. Really, it is. And second of all, I did have huge problems with this book. But I’ll get to them later, first off lets re-cap!. Faythe Sanders is not your average college student. She is a werecat, and the daughter of her Pride’s alpha. And as […]

Author Kameron Hurley has been getting a bit of coverage in the sff-world lately on account of her debut novel God’s War and to tie in with this publicity a collection of her short stories has been released. Many of these have been previously published before, but some have never been seen before. I haven’t read God’s War but it sounds vaguely interesting, I mean, it has been described as bug-punk, that’s got to pique your interest, right? So when I saw this I figured that it’d be nice to get a sampler of her work before lining up another book on Mount TBR. The stories in this collection are:The short stuffThe Women of Our OccupationIf Women Do Fall they LieHolding Onto GhostsWonder Maul DollGenderbending at the Madhattered My Oracles at the End of the World Once, There Were WolvesCanticle of the FleshIn Freedom, DyingWomen and Ladies, Blood and Sand
and a lot are available to read on her site

Suppose a researcher were to tap you on the shoulder and ask you to write down what, according to cultural lore, males and females are like.

Before starting to review this book I have to admit that I am biased in its favour. I hate and despise those “Men are from Mars”-esque books. I’ve never actually read one, but flicking through them as they get catalogued is almost enough to make me puke they are so despicable. So I guess that a debunking of them is bound to appeal to me because it agrees with me. And we all know how happy that makes me :)

When I spotted this in Chapters bookshop I knew I had to buy it, if only because it is the inspiration for Carl’s blog. Plus, you know, it is one of those sci-fi adventures that you really should have at least flicked through at some stage.

Slippery Jim is our narrator, and our hero, of sorts. He is also the Stainless Steel Rat, or at least that is how he describes himself. Slipping through the technological world and committing many daring acts of thievery and innumerable cons. Safe and secure in the knowledges that his wits, charm and logic will get him out of danger. Until, that is, he is caught. The Special Corps, so special that no one is really sure they exist until, of course, they catch you, succeed in arresting him. But instead of throwing him in jail, or punishing him they offer him a job. Come and work for them. So he does, after all, he was never a bad man, just one who wanted his bit of freedom.

Full title: Singled Out: How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War
ISBN: 9780670915644

The term “lost generation” is often used to refer to the generation who came of age in World War I, a term commonly used to refer to those who died in the war, especially those of the upper-class. These, the “flower of youth” were the young men aged in the early twenties in the war. The loss of these men had a huge knock on effect in Britain. In this book Nicholson looks at the women of that lost generation and how their lives were forced to change from their expected path to marriage and motherhood.

These were the so-called “surplus women” the two million or so who would never marry, would never have children, and who were, in many eyes, a problem to be dealt with.

It is Christmas, 1913 and Charlie Horst sees himself as the luckiest man in the world. He has a beautiful wife who completes his life. And this is to be their first Christmas together. Bedelia, whose whole life revolves around making her husband happy, has decorated their home lavishly for their Christmas party. But a new neighbour, Ben Chaney, begins to show an interest in Bedelia and her past. And then there is Charlie’s case of “severe indigestion”. Is there more to Bedelia than meets the eye? Could she possibly be “the wickedest woman who ever loved”?

This was a wonderful read. When I first started it I had no idea[1] what to expect; I knew nothing about it apart from the fact that it was an Historical Favorites pick and so, most likely, an historical novel :). It opens with Marco da Cola setting down his recollections of his time spent in England. He travelled over in an attempt to help with his family’s business troubles. However there was little he could do and soon he found himself in Oxford among the professionals there and became embroiled in the case of Sarah Blundy, and the possible murder of Robert Grove. As well as delving into medical experiments with blood transfusion.

I enjoyed this book a lot more than i had suspected I would when I picked it up. But it only cost me .25 cents so it really was a win win situation. It tells the story of Mary Tudor, who, as you may have guessed from the title, was Henry VIII’s daughter. The book […]